1. Field of the invention
The invention relates to an improved installation for the wet treatment of textile materials disposed on material-carriers.
It relates in particular to an installation for the treatment of textile materials having a basis of natural, synthetic or artificial threads or fibers or mixtures thereof, whether said materials are in the form of yarns, floss, worsteds, ribbons, twisted cords, spinning cakes, woven or knitted pieces, yarn beams, skeins of yarn, etc... and the invention which anticipates application to such materials each treated alone or, alternately, in a mixed way, also contemplates therefor in particular but not exclusively, treatment such as dyeing, bleaching, fixing, etc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Washing, dyeing or bleaching installations are already known for textile materials in which the treatments are carried out in an autoclave by causing a treatment fluid to flow through said materials disposed on material-carriers, for example bayonet or manifold devices for the treatment of reels of yarns. Such autoclaves are either disposed horizontally, that is to say with a treatment enclosure or tank with horizontal axis, or are disposed vertically.
In this latter case, they are generally erected over pits of greater or lesser depth, covered by a gangway or a floor from which are actuated overhead cranes, travelling gantry cranes or similar for handling the material-carriers for introducing them into and/or removing them from the autoclave. The space required is considerable and, since the civil engineering work and the work for fitting out an installation including such autoclaves, as well as the running and maintenance costs increase considerably with the depth of the pits and/or the below ceiling height when the autoclaves are set directly on the ground, it is advantageous to reduce as much as possible the space required by the autoclaves, so that installations may be constructed or existing installations extended for a lower cost.
In the case of installations with horizontal autoclaves, for the wet treatment of textile materials disposed on carriages similar to tip-up trucks, for example for treating fabric pieces, the autoclaves are generally complex apparatus, cumbersome and suitable for one mode of operation but only for such a mode, so that they are not suitable for the working requirements of modern installations in which greater flexibility is required.
If, whatever the type of installation, it is desired to use a bath ratio as short as possible, that is to say to reduce as much as possible the ratio of the treatment liquid weight to the weight of treated textile materials, then the "useful" volume of the autoclave of the installation, that is to say the volume in which the loaded material-carriers are placed must be as close as possible to that of said loaded material-carriers, while however making possible satisfactory operation, in particular an expansion of said treatment bath when it is heated, for example during dyeing operations.
The correct flow of the treatment fluid through the autoclave and through the material to be treated also contributes to obtaining a satisfactory result, in particular a liquid bath when the wet treatment is dying, said liquid being set in movement by a pump, turbine or similar which causes it to flow in a closed loop in which a heat exchanger may possibly be included. If the dynamic pressure of the fluid set in motion by the pump, turbine or similar is not to cause malfunctions, it is important for the material-carriers and their load to be immobilized simply but reliably in the autoclave, whatever the direction of flow of the fluid -- which must moreover be reversible -- for example in the case of treating reels of yarn, so as to provide a flow from the inside towards the outside of the reels or vice versa.
Since, complementarily, in the case of static pressurized treatment using for example compressed air or an inert gas -- such as nitrogen -- the cost for large amounts is not inconsiderable, a satisfactory installation must not only make it possible to fulfill the above mentioned conditions but also to use as small an amount of gas as possible.